1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to map information providing systems, and more specifically to a map information providing system including one or more movable terminals for providing map information therefor through telecommunications.
2. Description of the Background Art
In recent years, vehicles adopting a navigation system has increased in population. The information the navigation system provides also has been expanding from map information to information further including, for example, traffic information and event information (hereinafter referred to as map related information.) The navigation system is expected to become rapidly available in the future as it becomes more convenient.
The conventional vehicle navigation system generally provides information in such a way that a mobile terminal reads map information and map related information recorded in a read-only recording medium such as a CD-ROM as required.
However, in the conventional system using a read-only recording medium, it is difficult to provide map related information including information with a high degree of real-time characteristics such as traffic information and weather information.
Therefore, a vehicle navigation system capable of further providing map related information including information with a high degree of real-time characteristics is disclosed. For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 9-8917 discloses an art as to a device which downloads map information and map related information from an information providing center through a communications circuit to a mobile terminal.
However, in the conventional system which provides information through telecommunications as disclosed in the above gazette, since telecommunications costs increase as the amount of information to be transmitted increases, it is impossible to provide detailed, wide-ranging map related information at low costs.